Man implicated in Dhs550,000 scam jailed

DUBAI: A scamster implicated in borrowing Dhs550,000 to allegedly use it to process a certificate necessary to unfreeze a $12m (Dhs44.07m) cash bequest has been imprisoned.

The unemployed African man, 25, and his cohorts targeted a kind Indian housewife, 47, and asked her to lend them money. They collected the remittances at money shops on various occasions.

He illicitly used someone’s Emirates ID to collect part of the money (Dhs2,000) in February and in May. The Dubai Criminal Court imprisoned him for six months to be followed by deportation.

In Naif Police Station records, the housewife received a message on her Messenger account from a woman posing as a Pakistani teacher in Karachi, asking for some PKR60,000 worth of Zakat.

“I talked to a female relative who wired Dhs2, 000 to her. Days later, the same woman contacted me again. She claimed she had a case at a bank in the UK regarding a bequeathed sum of money. And that she wanted to withdraw the $12m but the bank’s branch manager in the UK notified her that the funds were frozen,” said the housewife. The woman mentioned the bank and the branch manager.

“She told me she wanted some money to process a certificate necessary to unfreeze the cash bequest. She promised to pay immediately after the bequest is released. I expressed willingness to help.

“She gave me the address of a man she identiied as a Briton working at a UN ofice in Abu Dhabi and claimed he was the oficial to inalise the necessary procedures at the bank in the UK.

“In intervals of one week to ten days she would ask me to wire money to an African person who would pass it to the Briton. I wired cash to the tune of Dhs550,000 to ive African nationals.”

The housewife made ten transfers. Later, the woman told her the procedures were yet to be completed, as there were two more certiicates to be obtained in order to get the bequest unfrozen.

“She asked me to wire Dhs65,000 to inalise the procedures. I realised I fell victim to a scam,” the house complained and showed several receipts of money shops via which she wired money. An Emirati lieutenant revealed, “The defendant said a friend handed him someone’s ID to collect remittances against a reward of Dhs50 to Dhs60 per each operation. He collected Dhs2,000 twice.”